Environmental Toxins

Please note that this section contains my personal notes from my readings on this topic.

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Paraphrased from The Toxic Sandbox (2007) by Libby McDonald; pages 9:

A 2006 study that mailed questionnaires to pediatricians showed that although doctors are aware that many major chronic illnesses today’s children suffer from — including asthma, autism, attention deficit disorders, and even cancer — can be exacerbated by or even directly result from exposure to environmental contaminants, most doctors have no training in environmental health. Furthermore, except for lead, they haven’t been taught to gather information about a child’s environmental history and have little to no ability to talk about threats posed by environmental toxins like mercury, plastics, and pesticides.

Environmental chemicals… These widely distributed chemicals have been shown to disrupt hormones, although it is not clear which hormones in humans are being disrupted. These chemicals may also cause reproductive abnormalities, birth defects and Type 2 diabetes… There are many different types of offending chemicals, most of which are commonly associated with industrial pollution. One group, including dioxins and PCBs, persist in the environment because they are not metabolized when consumed. Thus they are not excreted from the body. Because of this lack of metabolism, these chemicals accumulate in body fat and breast milk of lactating mothers. Some of these chemicals are known to promote the growth of cancer cells, although humans may not be at significant risk unless one consumes excessive quantities of meat, milk and fish. Indeed, 90 – 95% of our exposure to these chemicals comes from consuming animal products — yet another reason why consuming animal-based foods can be risky.